Eight Day Week

You saw so much of your apartment this winter, you considered taking it as a lover …. Now we’re one week into spring, the war in Iraq has plunged the city into anxiety and fraught emotion, and Martin Scorsese is ruing the day he ever took Harvey Weinstein’s phone call …. Spring also means that the inevitable proliferation of chinos has begun-the pants , and those silly shakes

masquerading as “coffee” (mocha,

frappa … ). You’re eager to chuck those boots you excitedly bought in October, and are actually looking forward to those strappy sandals lacerating your feet for four months straight. Tonight the Upper West Side is thronged with hippies as the Allman Brothers Band -yes, they still exist-makes its annual pilgrimage to the ‘hattan. P.S.: Don’t wear the chinos.

Sweet 16 time, baby! Not that overrated Britney hangout in Chelsea; we’re talkin’ ballers, shot-callers and your emotionally unavailable boyfriend glued to your futon and flat-screen TV. If you’re a she-man like us, you’ll be right there next to him (our money’s on the ‘horns) …. But if you fancy yourself a “lady,” prance over to Berg dorf , where makeup artist Paula Dorf (no relation) teaches folks how to look like they’re ready for their closeup. ( Ironic author’s note : Actresses spend their careers imitating normal people, while the rest of us spend our lives trying to look like actresses …. ) We caught up with Ms. Dorf fresh off the plane from Japan. “I’m a little delirious, to tell you the truth! I couldn’t fall asleep on the plane-I just watched movie after movie after movie. I’m telling you, I’m a little dizzy! Have you ever been?” (We could tell you about our unhealthy fixation on the Japanimation cult classic Speedracer , but we’re not gonna … ). “My whole thing-which I’ve trademarked -is that I want every woman to become her own makeup artist. My face chart was written for ding-dong school ; it’s step by step by step, so you can’t miss a beat!” Ms. Dorf, whose “celebrity” roster includes Pat Benatar and Billy Joel , has her own high-end makeup line. “I have two brushes patented. I’m the only one in history who’s ever patented a brush. Well, I wasn’t gonna let them get away with copying me!” Biggest makeup no-no? “When women try to extend their lips using lip-liner-it’s just so artificial. I actually have something called Perfect Illusion that pumps up the lips. I patented that, too!” (If you do pay a visit to Ms. Dorf today, be sure to bring your copyright lawyer …. ) Meanwhile , right downstairs at Bergdorf, you can pilfer the open bar as Esquire magazine toastsdesigner GeorgeLois’ book $ellebrity , about his infamous Esquire covers in the days before all art directors gave up and just put Gisele on the cover each month. If you’d rather strain your arm throwing strikes instead of throwing back shots, you can strap on your bowling shoes at Chelsea Piers, where the Make-a-Wish Foundation is having a benefit.

George Plimpton dons seersucker tonight and pedals his bike westward to accept the Poor Richard’s Award from the Small Press Center. What gives? “I suppose I have to say a few things about the magazine,” said the Paris Review founder. “And I think they give you a little statuette of Benjamin Franklin. I don’t really know what the connection is there.” The Poor Richard’s statue may be the poor man’s Oscar, but according to Mr. Plimpton (who’s got some film appearances under his kid-leather belt), the li’l gold guy still won’t get you past the velvet ropes. “I was at the Oscars one year, and I wanted to go to the Governor’s Ball but didn’t have a ticket. So Leon Gast, the director [of When We Were Kings ], gave me his Oscar and said, ‘This will get you in anywhere.’ So I went up to the table at the Governor’s Ball and they asked, ‘Where is your ticket?’ And I said, ‘I don’t have a ticket, but I’ve got this .’ And she said, ‘But where is your ticket?’ It was of no use whatsoever!” Darn, Roman Polanski was planning to try the same trick at the immigration counter at Kennedy Airport.

Remember that girl? The one everyone hissed about in high school because she had sex in that field during the homecoming game, but whom you secretly envied? Well, see her again tonight in Dear Prudence , a naughty farce about a “lovable nymphomaniac” (is there any other kind?). We’re told there will be on-stage nudity-no one under 16 allowed in-although none of it frontal ( cowards !). Playwright Susan Hefti (40-ish, WASP-y, kind of a Bette Davis–Susan Sarandon fusion) put down her Bloody Mary and explained the play’s title character: “This is her ice cream. This is her pizza. This is her high. She loves her sex! ” Umm, did someone say ice cream?

Who says the Hamptons aren’t going to be hotter than Lizzie Grubman’s accelerator pedal this summer? The eateries of the East End hope to lure you out there nice and early-like, say, today-by offering dinner for $19.95 this week. So smoosh the kiddoes into your sport utility vehicle (two hours of “I’ll turn this car around right now!”) and hit this sample sale of restaurants. “You can eat at Nick and Toni’s, Della Femina and Pacific East in the same weekend and not break up your I.R.A. … whatever’s left of it!” said Steven Haweeli, president of a Hamptons public-relations firm. Mr. Haweeli used to pour stiffies at Nick and Toni’s. “There was that night that I had Sally Field, Martin Short, Richard Dreyfuss, Quincy Jones and James Woods at the bar at the same time. It was Steven Spielberg’s rehearsal dinner, and there I was, bartending for all these muckety-mucks!” All downhill from there, eh, bub? Meanwhile, here at home camp, there’s a headache waiting to happen at the JUdson Grill’s Champagne Gala, where Robin Leach- arriving in some sort of time capsule from the gaudy 1980’s-auctions off a weekend stay at the Mark hotel, a trip to Costa Rica and many bottles of bordeaux wines. Hic!

Helen Hunt is back from … wherever the hell she went after The Curse of the Jade Scorpio n (co-starring Charlize Theron and Elizabeth Berkley -pattern, anyone?), and she turns up on Broadway tonight opposite thinking woman’s sex symbol John Turturro , alum of many a Spike Lee film, for the opening night of Life (x) 3 . It’s one of those comedies about unexpected dinner guests who burst in and cause total anarchy …. And if you’re brain has turned to mush after enduring the current crop of TV news types nattering on inanely about the war , inhale a big whiff of Walter Cronkite tonight at the Museum of Television & Radio.

College admissions letters start ker-plunking in mailboxes today. (Listen carefully and all up and down Manhattan you’ll hear cries of: “But I don’t wanna go to Tufts !”) Crash strategy for the rejected college hopefuls : Show up in the fall anyway and tell them that, since the rejection letter came on April Fool’s Day , you thought they were just joshing ya! Oh, that reminds us-this afternoon, something called the April Fool’s Day Parade stumbles down Fifth Avenue, featuring pranksters dressed as Jack Welch, Kenneth Lay, Martha Stewart …. Thankfully, there’s also a Michael Jackson Dangling His Child Off the Balcony Float. Who says this town has no class ? Speaking of Michael Jackson, April is National Poetry Month, but if you’re expecting a panel of City College profs in tweed, guess again: Poetry goes glam tonight as Meryl Streep, Caroline Kennedy, Harvard sprite Natalie Portman, Kitty Carlisle Hart, William Styron and others lay down some rhymes at Juilliard …. Meanwhile, investment banker Steven Rattner and his wife, Democratic activist Maureen White, put out the cocktail weenies in honor of Court TV founder Steve Brill’s new book, After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era . “The book follows everyone from John Ashcroft to Tom Ridge to a guy in the Silicon Valley who makes the machines that screen for bombs in airports, to a shoemaker with a shop near Ground Zero,” said Mr. Brill. “All of these people’s paths cross in strange and interesting ways.” Despite blurbs from Tom Brokaw and Warren Buffett , Mr. Brill said that not everyone will be smiling. “This book is not all sweetness and light. A lot of people come off not looking so well. I think a lot of my friends who are Democrats are going to be upset by it because it gives the Bush administration a lot of credit , but the treatment of Ashcroft is pretty critical.”

Be healed! Or at least pretend to be , as the Parapsychology Foundation -which sponsors the scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena -teleports neuroscientist and Duke University associate professor Steve Baumann into its headquarters on East 71st Street tonight. The good doctor will be lecturing on psychic healers. Admission is 10 bucks-but if they’re psychic, shouldn’t they already know your credit-card number?